Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me? (5 page)

Dave said, “It depends on what the girls are wearing.”

“What?”

“Boys are very visual.”

“Er, Dave, I think you mean very stupid. Anyway, it doesn’t matter what Wet Lindsay wears. It can’t disguise her octopussyness.”

“Listen, Chaos Queen, how’s every little thing? Is your girlfriend still stropping around, rifling
through his handbag, or is it all tickety-boo?”

“Well, he wrote me a note, but I haven’t seen him yet. It’ll be the first time on Sat. He says we should take it easy and that maybe he overreacted a bit.”

Dave said, “A bit? That’s like Hitler saying, ‘Oooh, I just meant to go for a little walk, but then I accidentally invaded Poland.’”

“No, Dave, it isn’t anything like that.”

“You didn’t know that Hitler invaded Poland, did you?”

“Of course I did.”

“You don’t know where Poland is, do you?”

“Dave, I am not a complete fool.”

“Where is it then?”

“It’s clearly, you know, near…”

“Yes?”

“The top bit.”

Dave laughed. “You are good value, kittykat.”

I was a bit red, but at least I had avoided saying that I was sort of “on trial” maturiositywise with the Luuurve God…

Dave said, “So you’ll be at the gig on Saturday?”

“Yes, will you be there?”

“Probs.”

“Dave?”

“Yep…”

“Well, Dave, will you, can you, will you not be too funny and talk to me and so on?”

“You want me to not talk to you and not be funny and so on?”

He sounded a bit weird.

I said, “Only until, you know, the whole thing, the whole pants and comedy twisting thing dies down.”

He said, “You must really like him….”

I didn’t say anything.

He said, “Listen, I have to dasharoo. S’laters.” And he hung up.

I think he’s miffed.

Dear God, you just get one boy off the numpty seat and another one goes and sits on it.

10:00 p.m.

Why do cats do this? They loll about snoozing in weird places for hours.

It’s never their cat basket.

Why would anything want to have a snooze on the top of the kitchen rubbish bin?

Or the loo seat?

Or the fruit bowl?

Then, after all that snoozing all day, at ten p.m. they wake up and go utterly bananas. Tearing up and down the stairs. Leaping from the sofa to the television, missing and falling down the back of it. Diving into plastic bags. Wrestling with their own feet. Then shooting up the curtains and doing ad hoc sailors’ hornpipe stuff coming down…

Why?

Where does leaping up curtains and doing the hornpipe occur in primitive cat life?

in bed

10:30 p.m.

Time for snoozy snooze and Luuurve Goddy dreams.

I’ve almost forgotten what the Luuurve God looks like.

thirty seconds later

Yummy scrumboes, though, I know that much.

And also, Grrrrrrrrrr.

Oh dear God, I actually said that out loud. I am growling at myself.

I have got snogging withdrawal baaaaad.

In fact, maybe I have forgotten how to snog.

Oh no. I may have lost my skills puckerwise.

I need to practice.

10:35 p.m.

I have done something so disgusting and weird that even I am ashamed of myself.

one minute later

This may be another thing I will not be mentioning this side of the grave.

one minute later

I hope that God and Baby Jesus were momentarily looking aside. Like I am sure they do when you are having a poo.

Or when Uncle Eddie does his baldy-o-gram.

one minute later

I can’t get the thing that I will never talk about ever again out of my brain.

one minute later

I can’t stand this. OK, I admit it!!!!

I looked at Mr. Potato Head and considered practicing puckering up on him.

There you are—it’s out now.

one minute later

Yes, I momentarily thought about snogging my little sister’s cast-off.

one minute later

I wonder where snogging a root vegetable would come on the Snogging Scale?

Minus 50 I should think.

I bet Jas snogs her owls.

11:00 p.m.

I hope Dave is just having a minor hump. We are, after all, mates.

Yeah, that will be it. He will just be having a No. 7 (walking on ahead, metaphorically).

It won’t be the full Humpty Dumpty.

So that’s alright.

2:00 a.m.

Woke up from a dream that I was at a fancy-dress party. I was painted purple and in the nuddy-pants
because I had gone as a jelly baby. Then Dave the Laugh came by really slowly with a girl on his back. I said, “What have you come as?”

And he said, “A tortoise.”

I said, “Who’s the girl on your back?”

And he said, “That’s Michelle…. Do you get—it me-chelle?”

And he was laughing and laughing. But not in a nice way.

friday september 23rd

8:15 a.m.

I really need some new shoes for Saturday night. Maybe my vati is in a sunny, Devil take the hindmost sort of mood about money this morning.

I said, “Dad…I couldn’t help noticing how…er…shiny your car is. You do keep it lovely.”

“No.”

“Dad, I…”

“Good-bye.”

I can’t believe it.

Mum came mumming in, in her knickers. Well, if you can call them that.

Hang on a minute.

I said, “Mum, are you wearing a thong?”

She is. She is wearing a thong!

I said to her, “If you have a road accident, I will not be coming to explain your underwear to the emergency services.”

She just looked at me and went off into the bathroom…. Well. Then I remembered my new shoes.

I shouted to her, “Mum, could I just borrow…”

Before I could finish, she shouted back. “No.”

What is the point of parents? They wonder why the youth of today goes wrong. If they would merely give us what we wanted and keep away from us, all would be well….

Instead of Mum just lending me her black Chanel stilettos and everything being nice and easy, I am now going to have to sneak into her wardrobe, smuggle them out in my bag, wear them, sneak back into her room and replace them.

They force us into a life of crime.

on the way to school

8:30 a.m.

Jas needn’t think I have forgotten about her blatant lack of best mateyness. And her creepy-crawly pants behavior around Wet Lindsay.

I am going to have the hump with her for once and see how she likes that. I am going to avoid her house and go a different way. That will teach her that you can’t…she is sitting on my gate.

Damn. I hadn’t even had the chance to get in my huffmobile.

She hopped off the gate and said, “Gee, I’m really sorry about last night. I couldn’t sort of get out of it because of Tom and Robbie. It’s not Lindsay, but the boys are brothers and…well, you know…blood is thicker than not having a forehead.”

I went, “Hmmph.”

She got her midget gems out and offered me one.

I was a bit suspicious.

“Where have you been keeping these? It’s not your special pantie hoard, is it?”

She said, “I just bought them new. You can open the packet and have any color you like, even if it’s not the top one.”

Blimey, she is really pulling out all the stops.

on the way to stalag 14

It’s more fun being chummly wummlies with Jazzy Spazzy than riding alone in the huffmobile.

I said, “Did you hear Wet Lindsay doing that ickle girl thing?”

Jas nodded like Noddy the well-known nodding dog from Nodland. And then she said, “I’ve decided I’m not going to go for being a prefect anymore. I don’t want to hang out with Wet Lindsay and ADM.”

I said, “Who does? They don’t even want to hang out with themselves.”

But I am really pleased. I gave her a spontaneous outdoor hug. Even though we might have been seen by the Blunderboys and created an outburst of “Get ’em off, you lezzies.”

five minutes later

We were in such a good matey mood that we did the top part of the snot dance along the High Street…. I am soooo happy I’ve got my luuuverly bestie mate and gang and on Saturday I will be in the arms of a Luuurve God. Probably.

break

We were in a spontaneous dance mood all day. But not in a getting-a-detention way. When Mr. Attwood appeared around our camp (the fives
court) in his wheelchair, we did a quick rendition of the snot dance. Just to cheer him up. In case he was feeling peaky at having to pretend to be crippled. But did he appreciate it? No, he did not.

In fact, as usual, he was shouting.

“You young buggers, I’ll tell the headmistress about this!!”

I said, “Mr. Attwood, we are merely trying to cheer you up with our girlish high spirits. Anyway, I am here to help. I am going to push you to the science block…”

He said, “I’m not going to the science block.”

I said, “Are you sure?”

He didn’t seem keen, but I started pushing his chair down the incline toward the lower part of the science block.

I said, “Oooh, we’re really moving along now, aren’t we, Mr. Attwood? Are you enjoying yourself? I am.”

He was yelling, “Oy oy, watch it, watch it!!!”

Then we started going faster and faster and I was singing, “He taught me to yodel…yodo-le-ee-heee. Do you know
Heidi,
Mr. Attwood?”

He was shouting, “Never mind about bloody
Heidi
!”

I said, “Never mind about
Heidi
? It’s a classic, Mr. Attwood…. Oh dear, oh dear…Oh NO! I’ve lost control of the chair. I can’t stop it…. We’re going to crash into the science block! Save yourself, save yourself!!!”

At which point, Mr. Attwood leapt out of his chair like a very old startled earwig. He was trotting along, pulling up his trousers and grumbling on. “Bloody fool, I could have been killed!”

But I fell to my knees and started yelling, “It’s a miracle. It’s a miracle. Look, everyone. He can walk. He walks!!!!”

And loads of people saw him, so everyone knew he was pretending, so he didn’t dare do anything to me. Resultio! He was bang to rights, as our proud bobbies in blue might say (if they were in the mood).

afternoon break

To make completely sure that they had got it, I explained my re-entrancing a Luuurve God plan.

Rosie said, “So your nub and gist is that we do nicey-nice, and you do glaciosity and pouch work?”

“Mais oui.”

evening

8:00 p.m.

In bed with a face mask on. I’ve made it myself with mashed-up banana and cream. It feels disgustingly slimy. Like having Wet Lindsay on your face. OH MY GOD!!!

I want to scrub my brain out.

I hope the Luuurve God appreciates this. Although, of course, I don’t necessarily want him to know about me being slathered in goo.

8:10 p.m.

I am going to lie here in my mask and imagine what I want to happen tomorrow night. I’ve barricaded my door with some drawers, so it should be cat and loon proof.

Not that anybody cares what I’m up to, as it’s party headquarters downstairs. Mum has got some of her mad aquarobics friends round and Dad and Uncle Eddie and their new bestie Mr. Across the Road are all making complete arses of themselves.

They are all wearing tight, light blue jeans for a start. What is that all about? Where have all the proper dads gone? Like in Dickens and so on.
Dads in
Crap Expectations
and
David Copperpants
were either dead or had a proper job that kept them out of the house all day and most of the night.

My only idea of what a real dad could be like comes from Jas’s dad. He wears Marks & Spencer’s casual slacks and a cardigan with a pocket for his pipe and bifocals. Like in the
Good Dad Guide Book
, which I haven’t read and Dad certainly hasn’t. And if I had read it, I know for a fact there would not be a chapter on “How to be a male stripper.”

Anyway, where was I?

Aaaah, yes, relaxey
vous
ey and Ohhhhmm-mmmm…

Here we go and relaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx…

So, here I am in my fantasy, arriving at the Sugar Club. Hmmmmm, I’m looking naaaice in my mum’s fabby stilettos and my denim skirt and little cheeky waistcoat which emphasizes my shape but doesn’t thrust my basoomas into the face of others.

My hair is displaying
magnifique
bounceability and my skin glows with the look that only four bananas mashed to a pulp can achieve.

Confident of my charms, I blink my eyes slowly (forty-five layers of mascara is heavy). My nose, which once flung itself with gay abandon across my face, seems a normal size. I have quite literally grown into my nose. Although this is not to suggest that I have an enormous head.

And when I say I have grown into my nose, I also don’t mean that I am actually living in my nose, so stop it. And get out of my fantasy, whoever you are.

My ace gang and I enter the club and everyone looks round. Who is that? they ask themselves. She looks like someone who should go out with a lead singer or something….The band comes on and starts to play.

I am dancing by myself. I don’t need a partner tonight because…there he is.

Up on the stage.

In the spotlight of life.

A Luuurve God.

And everyone knows that a Luuurve God on the stage is worth two on a bus.

He looks at me. I look at him.

Time stands still.

Suddenly, he gets his maracas out (leave it)
and starts playing. It’s a tune called “Georgia,
mia bellissima
, Georgia.”

It’s about me.

He beckons me onto the stage.

I look shyly away, but the crowd start chanting, “We want Georgia, we want Georgia!!”

Smiling sweetly, I go up onto the stage. But I can’t sing—why am I up here?

The Stiff Dylans start to really rock out. Robbie gives me a nice smile and nods his head to me.